Mind Blowing Statistics On Men and Women Gamers

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I know this is going to be hard to believe but a recent study found that...wait for it...wait for it...men play first person shooters while women prefer HayDay and Candy Crush. Whoa. :eek:

Men and women enjoy video games, but some genres tend to attract one gender over the other, SuperData Research finds in a 2014 US study provided to Joystiq. Women compose 57.8 percent of the mobile market, 53.6 percent of the RPG market and 50.2 percent of the PC market (including social games), the report says. The study finds that men make up 66 percent of MMO players, 66 percent of FPS players and 63 percent of digital console players.
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The interesting stat is the RPG one. It is the one "core" game genre that is played more by women.
 
Shmee said:
The interesting stat is the RPG one. It is the one "core" game genre that is played more by women.
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don't you find it interesting that 1 out of every 3 players in an FPS is a woman?
 
Shmee said:
The interesting stat is the RPG one. It is the one "core" game genre that is played more by women.
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I think that's because RPGs have more storyline and need a deeper level of thinking in order to understand what's happening as well as connect emotionally with the character or characters involved. Lots of people played Final Fantasy games, but I bet the vast majority of male players glossed over and totally missed the nuances of character interaction between the combat stuff.

Anyhow, I know the article is a Captain Obvious, but because the gaming industry is slowly shifting away from the stereotyped categories of male-dominated shooting and killing stuff, it's good to check up on how those changes are influencing player demographics. I hope stuff like this encourages a bigger diversity of games and maybe some improvements in the lame/mindless MMO world that really could be done better to gather up a different audience.
 
Wow though, 37 percent of FPS players are women? That is surprising and afaik, untrue. When I go to my friends house and play BO2 on his 360, 70 percent of people use headsets, and like 1 percent of them are women.
 
Well, keep in mind, 78.3% of all statistics are made up.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
Anyhow, I know the article is a Captain Obvious, but because the gaming industry is slowly shifting away from the stereotyped categories of male-dominated shooting and killing stuff, it's good to check up on how those changes are influencing player demographics. I hope stuff like this encourages a bigger diversity of games and maybe some improvements in the lame/mindless MMO world that really could be done better to gather up a different audience.
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There used to be a more diversity and a broader audience before the playstation.

The people who think that gaming has always catered to a adolescent males focused primarily on violence and sex must have grown up in the nineties playing playstation because that wasn't the case pre-90's. PC gamers weren't kids back then either, it took a lot of money to play a game in the beginning of PC gaming (thousands of dollars for an entry system).

We had women developers, a wide range of games, communities were focused around genres more than they seem to be now: we had turn based games, rpg's, adventure games (sierra online alone developed tons of different games directed at different audiences), puzzle games, text games, flight sims, fps, platformers, and games with strong female leads and plot twists that turned he damsel in distress tropes on their heads.

so it's interesting to see how far games have "fallen" when talking about content and diversity and things like that given what many of us grew up playing...if you're over/near 40 anyway.
 
Define RPG. Does it only include story driven adventure type games or does it include things like farmville. Because technically you play a role in that game.
 
Shmee said:
The interesting stat is the RPG one. It is the one "core" game genre that is played more by women.
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Yes, but you have to gain a full understanding of what games are classified as RPGs to get an understanding of this category. The SIMs is considered an RPG just as many others you wouldn't normally think of hanging this tag on.
 
PCunicorn said:
Wow though, 37 percent of FPS players are women? That is surprising and afaik, untrue. When I go to my friends house and play BO2 on his 360, 70 percent of people use headsets, and like 1 percent of them are women.
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Any thoughts on why the 30% who don't use headphones don't use them?
 
mope54 said:
PC gamers weren't kids back then either, it took a lot of money to play a game in the beginning of PC gaming (thousands of dollars for an entry system).
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Many were, you were just required to be the kid of a relatively well off and nerdy parent. I and most of my friends were PC gaming kids back in the 808x days and basically none of our parents were. They were just defense industry nerds that had a computer at work so they wanted one at home.

IIRC our first PC was $4,800 in inflation adjusted dollars but we bought it used for about $2,900 (also inflation adusted). Lot of money to play Wasteland in CGA.
 
I'd like to see some fine details (can't get to site at work). Percents based on actual games. x% of women on Call of Duty BO2. Or Final Fantasy. Or Farmville... Because in some MMO's, there are guys that play as girls and vice versa.

What is the survey group? What they say on Xbox Live? My wife plays on my account for some games (she LOVES Burnout Paradise).
 
There are some interesting stats here. For instance, I didn't know that 1/3 of MMO players were women. I figured it would be 1/5 or less. Most of them are probably married to their partner in the game, but that is still interesting.
 
mope54 said:
don't you find it interesting that 1 out of every 3 players in an FPS is a woman?
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Nope. That seems to jibe with what I have seen online. With RPGs (non MMOs of course) we generally don't play with others, so I have no real personal way corroborate that stat. I am not saying it is wrong, and it kind makes sense.
 
Don't forget that women also like the "RPG Spectrum", which a few female gamer friends dislike that I use.
 
Problem with these kinds of stats is that business and marketing people look at these and say "we need to make games that appeal to everyone", which usually leads to mediocre, vanilla flavored, casual garbage that appeals to no-one.

Hollywood has a much better business strategy. I'd say the movie going audience is 50/50 men to women, but yet there are lots of unquestionable "guy movies" and lots of undeniable "chick flicks". Fight Club is a 'drama' and Titanic is a 'drama'.

Rather than one size fits all, hollywood puts out products that appeal the most to a particular audience, embracing their differences. Unfortunately gaming companies haven't figured this out, and still try to throw as wide a net as possible for an audience.
 
evilsofa said:
Any thoughts on why the 30% who don't use headphones don't use them?
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Voice chat in games, shooters in particular, invites a whole different level of dumb and it doesn't add anything of value to playing a game so, if you want to avoid that, you don't participate.
 
evilsofa said:
Any thoughts on why the 30% who don't use headphones don't use them?
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I used to never use my headset because if I was playing online, but not with my friends, I really didn't want to talk to anyone else. They were usually jerky 12 year olds that had a thing for my Mom.
 
Love that counterstrike is considered an MMO along with LOL and other MOBA's. Since when is a MOBA an MMO and since when is counterstrike an MMOFPS?
 
mastaBlasta said:
Problem with these kinds of stats is that business and marketing people look at these and say "we need to make games that appeal to everyone", which usually leads to mediocre, vanilla flavored, casual garbage that appeals to no-one.

Hollywood has a much better business strategy. I'd say the movie going audience is 50/50 men to women, but yet there are lots of unquestionable "guy movies" and lots of undeniable "chick flicks". Fight Club is a 'drama' and Titanic is a 'drama'.

Rather than one size fits all, hollywood puts out products that appeal the most to a particular audience, embracing their differences. Unfortunately gaming companies haven't figured this out, and still try to throw as wide a net as possible for an audience.
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We need to start a #moviegate. I don't think it's fair that there are guy movies are targeted at guys and girl movies at girls. Expendables 4 should target women and Sex and the City 3 should target men. We should live in a society where there's no difference between men and women. It's 2014 and my idea of "man" has a "vagina" and "women" should have "penises".
 
Seventyfive said:
Love that counterstrike is considered an MMO along with LOL and other MOBA's. Since when is a MOBA an MMO and since when is counterstrike an MMOFPS?
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Since these studies are done by people who have no idea what they are doing a study on. It would be like me attempting to do a study on some insect in the Amazon jungle.
 
mastaBlasta said:
Problem with these kinds of stats is that business and marketing people look at these and say "we need to make games that appeal to everyone", which usually leads to mediocre, vanilla flavored, casual garbage that appeals to no-one
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so glad we're not inundated with such stinkers that appeal to no-one like King's Quest, Pac-Man, and Centipede
 
mope54 said:
There used to be a more diversity and a broader audience before the playstation.

The people who think that gaming has always catered to a adolescent males focused primarily on violence and sex must have grown up in the nineties playing playstation because that wasn't the case pre-90's. PC gamers weren't kids back then either, it took a lot of money to play a game in the beginning of PC gaming (thousands of dollars for an entry system).

We had women developers, a wide range of games, communities were focused around genres more than they seem to be now: we had turn based games, rpg's, adventure games (sierra online alone developed tons of different games directed at different audiences), puzzle games, text games, flight sims, fps, platformers, and games with strong female leads and plot twists that turned he damsel in distress tropes on their heads.

so it's interesting to see how far games have "fallen" when talking about content and diversity and things like that given what many of us grew up playing...if you're over/near 40 anyway.
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You can't say any of that with certainty because we didn't have demographic information in the '90s like we do today. By all accounts since this data started being collected the gamer demographic has gotten more diverse as it has expanded to more platforms over the past decade going by the ESA information. I wouldn't call that one source as the gospel since they didn't take PC into account at the start and they just started tracking digital sales. I would actually argue that this given this lax area of data collection that females account for a lot more than half of all gamers than we are led to believe at present.

But then that is the problem, isn't it? Information flows a lot more freely and is more readily available than it ever was even 10 years ago. The fact that this data is available now has contributed to the FUBAR situation we see in the industry now because of how well hidden from view it has been for the past 20+ years. Violence and sex has always been a part of video games, it's just that 3D projection has pushed realism to the point where people don't find it acceptable anymore.

I will agree with you on genres, though. As far as content and subject matter goes it seems like creativity has gone out the window in the past 10 years. But I would argue that communities around genres have only grown stronger with the age of the internet. The sheer amount of people who play video games and the domination of certain genres in the marketplace have just drowned them out to the majority of people.
 
Seventyfive said:
Love that counterstrike is considered an MMO along with LOL and other MOBA's. Since when is a MOBA an MMO and since when is counterstrike an MMOFPS?
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No CounterStrike...CounterStrike Online

Armenius said:
You can't say any of that with certainty because we didn't have demographic information in the '90s like we do today. By all accounts since this data started being collected the gamer demographic has gotten more diverse as it has expanded to more platforms over the past decade going by the ESA information. I wouldn't call that one source as the gospel since they didn't take PC into account at the start and they just started tracking digital sales. I would actually argue that this given this lax area of data collection that females account for a lot more than half of all gamers than we are led to believe at present.

But then that is the problem, isn't it? Information flows a lot more freely and is more readily available than it ever was even 10 years ago. The fact that this data is available now has contributed to the FUBAR situation we see in the industry now because of how well hidden from view it has been for the past 20+ years. Violence and sex has always been a part of video games, it's just that 3D projection has pushed realism to the point where people don't find it acceptable anymore.

I will agree with you on genres, though. As far as content and subject matter goes it seems like creativity has gone out the window in the past 10 years. But I would argue that communities around genres have only grown stronger with the age of the internet. The sheer amount of people who play video games and the domination of certain genres in the marketplace have just drowned them out to the majority of people.
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No, we do have data on this and there was a definitive shift away from games for adults to games for families to games as toys for boys.

Polygon has a good article on this.
http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/12/2/5143856/no-girls-allowed

Besides, I grew up alongside video games from the early 70's until now and this mirrors my experience as I'm sure it mirrors the other 40ish members here.
 
mope54 said:
No CounterStrike...CounterStrike Online


No, we do have data on this and there was a definitive shift away from games for adults to games for families to games as toys for boys.

Polygon has a good article on this.
http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/12/2/5143856/no-girls-allowed

Besides, I grew up alongside video games from the early 70's until now and this mirrors my experience as I'm sure it mirrors the other 40ish members here.
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That was actually a pretty good article from Polygon... Colour me shocked ;).

The archive.org link for anyone who doesn't want to give Polygon clicks:
https://web.archive.org/web/2014102...m/features/2013/12/2/5143856/no-girls-allowed

I'm in my 30's now, so I grew up during the time period when the marketing money came in and started advertising games as toys for boys in the late '80s. As I got older I was always frustrated by the connotation that video games were only toys and it was a hobby that one should grow out of. Even now, Walmart puts Video Games into their Toys section on their website and physically puts the section adjacent to the toys section in the stores while most others have moved them to general entertainment with movies and music. As I entered high school I was keenly aware of how video gaming started and the implications it had on technology. I grew to respect the hobby more and realized that it was a community that grew healthy relationships and kept your senses sharp.

I would argue that the "Playstation-era" reignited creativity in the shift to 3D projection as mainstream. It forced designers to think about gameplay in new ways and we had quite a few titles released between the PS1-PS2 generations that are considered some of the best games of all time by numerous people.

However, recognizing that shift in the mid-'80s by the power of monetary forces is what has me so passionate and worked up now. So far this console generation has really shown nothing to offer that differs from what we've already seen, and most of it is catering to the lowest-common denominator. Hardware sales are high, but software sales are low... and the solution to this problem by PR firms is to pay people off for good press instead of developers and publishers going to the source of the problem? Preorders are down because people don't trust you anymore, and you want to foster even more distrust? It's completely backward...

Never mind the fact about the mess we have now with ideologues and academics trying to insert their own agendas into an art form that never was about politics or ideologies to the general video gaming audience...
 
Gotta love it...

"GAMERS ARE MISOGYNISTIC SHITBAGS! I KNOW, I AM A WHITE MALE WITH A IRONIC GOATEE AND THICK-RIMMED NON-PRESCRIPTION GLASSES WHO WRITES FOR A GAMING SITE!"
"But this ESA report says Men and Women are equally divided in gaming..."
"NO, ALL GAMERS ARE WHITE CIS-HET NECKBEARD TROLLS! SOMEONE SAID THEY'D RAPE ME IN COD."
"Okay, here's a new report showing that men and women gravitate towards different game styles..."
"OMG STOP OPRESSING ME! GONE HOME IS 10/10 GOTAY! I KNOW BECAUSE MY BFF JILL WORKED ON IT!"

Thirty years this industry has flourished and grown to accept all varieties of games, and a few worthless hipsters have to go and try and ruin it all by making monsters out of nothing.
 
I finally got my wife to play games. It's Candy Crush and similar games. I gave up a few years ago.
My daughters play Minecraft - not much else. They've not shown interest in FPS games at all.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
Voice chat in games, shooters in particular, invites a whole different level of dumb and it doesn't add anything of value to playing a game so, if you want to avoid that, you don't participate.
Click to expand...

Umm, ignorant comment dude. Voice chat adds "everything" to many games, particularly team based games where effective communications are required to coordinate the team's actions. In competitive multiplayer gaming a team can't even come close without it.
 
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